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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.

John Adams

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John Adams
Age: 90 †
Born: 1735
Born: October 19
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
2Nd U.S. President
Diplomat
Lawyer
Political Philosopher
Politician
Statesperson
Braintree
Massachusetts
President Adams
J. Adams
President John Adams
Field
Ambition
Adroit
Fields
Subtlest
Intellectual
Concealing
Moral
Wonderfully
Owner
Owners
Beast

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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
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I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.
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Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.
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I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.
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One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
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Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not if honest man refuse it, others will not.
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Mr. Jefferson has reason to reflect upon himself. How he will get rid of his remorse in his retirement, I know not. He must know that he leaves the government infinitely worse than he found it, and that from his own error or ignorance.
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The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
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[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
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Thomas Jefferson survives.
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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
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I shall have the liberty to think for myself.
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The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.
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I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
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Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
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